Disney Disappoints Some Foreign Workers

Many Participants Praise The Park's International Program, But Some Are Upset.

July 22, 2001|By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles bureau

"I feel like a year that has been wasted. I would say that, for most of us, what we are told when we are recruited is totally different from what we actually get here."

Robert Wanjohi, Disney worker

``We are very proud of this program. In any hiring initiative, you're always going to have a small percentage of individuals who did not have a good time."

Diane Ledder, Walt Disney World spokesman

When Disney recruiters went to Kenya, touting a 12-month program at Walt Disney World in which Africans could be cultural ambassadors for their countries while taking courses to advance their careers, Robert Wanjohi was intrigued.

Their message: Live, learn and earn at the Happiest Place on Earth.

But Wanjohi, a safari guide from Lake Nakuru in Kenya, said the reality was far different from the promises.

Instead of working 40 hours a week or more, he only worked about six hours a day. And the classes the recruiters promised, from languages to computer training, either weren't offered or conflicted with his job as a driver at Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom, Wanjohi said.

Wanjohi, 35, who supports his wife and 8-year-old daughter, said that after 11 months here, he saved just $1,000 -- less than half what he would have saved in Kenya.

"I feel like a year that has been wasted," he said. "I would say that, for most of us, what we are told when we are recruited is totally different from what we actually get here."

He is among about 1,500 international workers who come to Walt Disney World every year, many of them under a temporary work visa that Congress created especially for Disney a decade ago. The internationals represent a small but growing segment of the resort's labor force.

The international program -- one of the largest of its kind in the United States -- gets praise from many participants who say their experience was a rewarding immersion into an icon of American business. But others, such as Wanjohi, tell a very different story.

Several African workers interviewed by the Sentinel expressed anger and disillusionment about their stay at Walt Disney World and said recruiters misled them about what they could expect in Orlando, from the type of job they would be doing to their educational opportunities and work hours.

Disney says such complaints are isolated and that recruiters take great pains to stress the program is about cultural exchange, not making money.

"We are very proud of this program," Walt Disney World spokesman Diane Ledder said. "In any hiring initiative, you're always going to have a small percentage of individuals who did not have a good time."

For a global concern like Disney, tapping foreign workers makes sense on several levels.

Such workers add authenticity to attractions such as the recently opened Animal Kingdom Lodge and the international pavilions at Epcot; they can communicate with the resort's diverse visitors; and they provide a low-cost, captive labor force at a time when the resort faces huge hourly staffing needs and mounting pressures to control costs.

International workers have been a fixture at Walt Disney World since Epcot opened in 1982 as a showcase of world cultures. Disney recruited several dozen temporary workers from France, Germany, England and elsewhere to be cultural ambassadors in the pavilions around Epcot's World Showcase.

Within a few years, Disney's international work force swelled to about 700 employees. Most worked under a temporary work visa called J-1.

But by the late 1980s the J-1 visa was attracting the scrutiny of the General Accounting Office because of abuses by some companies, though not by Disney.

Fearing Congress would revoke the J-1 program, Disney intensively lobbied for a new visa that would more clearly support its program. The result was Q-1, aptly dubbed the "Disney visa." It was among a slew of new temporary visas added to the Immigration Act of 1990.

The visa allowed companies to hire temporary foreign workers for unskilled positions where they are sharing their history, culture and traditions of their home country. They must work in a program approved by the attorney general.

And the temporary foreign workers can't easily up and leave their jobs because their visas restrict where they can work.

"The key thing here is that these workers can't quit," said Vernon Briggs, a professor of labor economics at Cornell University and an expert on immigration policy. "That's what makes them so attractive to industry and so controversial in terms of public policy."

While many companies hire temporary international workers, few operate a program as large as Disney's.

The number of international workers at Disney World has doubled in the past decade to about 1,500. Their ranks jumped following the opening of Animal Kingdom in 1998, when Disney recruited dozens of Africans and Asians to staff its fourth theme park. Disney further expanded its international hiring during the 15-month Millennium celebration at Epcot.